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Wedged just behind her chair and a half where I knew she loved to sit with a glass of wine at night and listen to records while looking out at the city.
I love to savor the night, she’d once told me.
And someone had soaked her favorite chair in her blood.
My stomach lurched as I saw the strange angle her leg was cocked at, knowing there was no way she was conscious with it bent that way.
I tried to take a deep breath, but the metallic scent of blood only made my stomach wobble around more as I forced myself to step behind the chair to see if she was still breathing.
I stared for a long second at her chest until I saw a slow, shallow rise.
“Judy!” I yelped, dropping down beside her into a puddle of her blood.
My hands moved out, turning her face toward me. “Hey, you’re going to be okay. You’re… you’re okay,” I told her, even though she clearly was not. “I’m getting help. I’m right here, but I’m getting help,” I babbled jumping back up to my feet, and rushing through her apartment to find the landline landline in the kitchen that she, thankfully, still had, since my cell was still in my apartment.
I rattled off the address as I rushed back toward Judy’s prone frame.
“Yeah, um. My neighbor has been attacked. I… there’s so much blood. It’s everywhere. Yeah, in her apartment. Yes. I don’t know. I don’t know where it is coming from,” I said, feeling the tears swimming in my eyes, blurring my vision. “She’s breathing, but she’s not conscious.”
“Can you try to find the source of the bleeding?” the operator asked after assuring me that the police and ambulance were on their way.
“I, ah, okay,” I agreed, putting the phone on speaker and setting it aside as my hands roamed over Judy, pulling up her blood-soaked shirt. “Oh, God,” I whimpered as my gaze landed on her stomach. “Oh, God…”
“Ma’am, what do you see?”
“She’s been stabbed,” I said, closing my eyes in a moment of weakness before forcing them open, knowing I needed to hold it together for Judy’s sake. “A couple times,” I added, seeing the various open wounds.
“Can you tell me where?”
“Her stomach. Higher up on her stomach.”
“Okay. Are any of the wounds bleeding a lot?”
“One of them.”
“Can you find a way to apply pressure to the wound until the paramedics get there?” she asked.
“I, ah, yeah. With just my hands or…”
“If you have to. Material of some sort would be better.”
“I have a blanket,” I said, yanking it down and pushing it into the wound, trying not to think too much about it, just doing what I was told.
“The police are on their way up now. The paramedics will be right behind. Just keep applying pressure on the wound,” the operator told me, her calm, collected voice managing to help me hold it together until, eventually, paramedics were rushing in, pushing me out of the way.
It was a police officer who reached out to help me back onto my feet. Though, I was pretty sure it wasn’t so much out of kindness as trying to get me out of the way.
My entire body was shaking as I told the officer my name and how I had come upon Judy.
I was in the middle of explaining about walking in and seeing the blood when I saw a figure move in behind the police officer.
Detective Newsom.
The man on Eren’s case.
“Mrs. Polat,” the detective said, looking over at me with raised brows. “Are you being treated?” he asked, looking at the blood I was covered in.
“I… it’s not… my friend…” I gulped, finding words hard to choke out with the way my teeth were clanking together from the shaking.
“Ms. Trent-Wood,” he recalled.
“She… someone… there’s so much blood,” I said, feeling the tears pouring down my cheeks.
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “Can we get Mrs. Polat a chair, please?” he asked, looking at the officer.
Some idiotic part of me wanted to object that I didn’t want to get blood on anything before I remembered that the entire damn living room was covered in it.
So I sat, not entirely trusting my legs to hold me as I watched the paramedics strap in Judy and start to pull her away.
“Is she going to be okay?” I called, lower lip trembling at her too-still body.
“We will know more when we get to the hospital,” they told me.
And then they were gone.
Along with my only friend in the whole world.
“Mrs. Polat, can you explain to me what happened here?”
“I, um, I was bringing over breakfast,” I told him. “I had dinner here last night, but I wanted to talk to her about some plans I came up with. But as soon as I stepped into the hallway, I knew something was wrong.”
